With the recent technological advances in imaging and document printing, forging of documents has become increasingly prevalent. For instance, color scanners now available for home use can accurately capture color variations depicted in many checks, graphics software can accurately reproduce security images and high resolution printing can print forged security features with increased precision.
One attempt to avoid document forgery has been the adoption of magnetic inks. Magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) not only permits automated entry of data by banking institutions but also provides an added level of complexity for forgers. However, a variety of magnetic ink formulations and methods of their preparation are publicly available and the ability to fill print cartridges with these formulations is becoming increasingly easy. Accordingly, there remains a need to provide improved security features to ensure the authentication of documents before printing as well as tracking and validation after the document has been printed